Saturday, October 17, 2015

Scientific crookedness among Warmists

It is very commonly regarded as a basic principle that scientists should make their raw data available to other scientists so that further information can be extracted from the data and so that the correctness of the original analysis can be checked. Many journals and scientific bodies have strict policies about that. Such policies are however often not followed. On the one occasion I requested someone else's data, I did not get it. I requested the data because I suspected a fault in the analysis so the refusal certainly strengthened that suspicion. Even after I publicized the refusal, the data was not forthcoming. Prof. Dr. Theodor Hanf was obviously prepared to wear what damage I had done to his reputation.

Warmists are shameless too. They are utterly notorious for refusing access to the raw data underlying their research. That is by itself some evidence that their conclusions are suspect and on the one notable occasion when their wall of secrecy was breached, the suspicion was amply confirmed. I refer of course to the re-analysis of Michael Mann's "hockeystick" data. Mann's findings were shown to be entirely artifactual.

But are all Warmist scientists as crooked as Mann? Are they all hiding something? We will never know but a paper by the ultra-cautious Dutch psychologist Jelke Wicherts certainly supports suspicions. He shows that unwillingness to make one's raw data available is indeed related to dubious conclusions. I reproduce the Abstract below:

Willingness to Share Research Data Is Related to the Strength of the Evidence and the Quality of Reporting of Statistical Results

Jelte M. Wicherts et al.

Abstract

The widespread reluctance to share published research data is often hypothesized to be due to the authors' fear that reanalysis may expose errors in their work or may produce conclusions that contradict their own. However, these hypotheses have not previously been studied systematically.

Methods and Findings

We related the reluctance to share research data for reanalysis to 1148 statistically significant results reported in 49 papers published in two major psychology journals. We found the reluctance to share data to be associated with weaker evidence (against the null hypothesis of no effect) and a higher prevalence of apparent errors in the reporting of statistical results. The unwillingness to share data was particularly clear when reporting errors had a bearing on statistical significance.

Conclusions

Our findings on the basis of psychological papers suggest that statistical results are particularly hard to verify when reanalysis is more likely to lead to contrasting conclusions. This highlights the importance of establishing mandatory data archiving policies.

s in support for renewable energy in the UK have been criticised by the UN's chief environment scientist.Prof Jacquie McGlade said the UK was shifting away from clean energy as the rest of the world rushed towards it.She said the cuts in renewables subsidies, coupled with tax breaks for oil and gas, sent a worrying signal to the coming UN climate summit in Paris.The UK government says it will meet its targets on carbon emissions in the most cost-effective way.www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34555821